Adding an LED and 3PDT

[guysmiley]

Am I on the right track with this?  I haven't hooked it up yet.  In theory, would this work as an on/off voltage regulator with an LED?  Thanks for any input?

[GGBB]

Assuming you don't mean a true voltage regulator or controller, just a dying battery simulator, looks fine.  But you can do it with an SPDT.  Excuse the bad ASCII drawing:


    +Vin       SPDT     +Vout   Pot
                 1--------X------1
      X----------2---------------2
                 3               3
                 |
                 R
                 |
                LED
                 |
                Gnd

[guysmiley]

Yeah, I meant a dying battery sim.  Thanks for looking it over.

[guysmiley]

Hmmm, wired it up and it doesn't work.  Maybe I should move the LED to the bottom left lug on the 3PDT with the LED + and Res towards the switch and the - to the ground?  Any ideas?   

[mth5044]

Does the whole thing not work? Does the LED not work? Do you get any voltage out at all? Please be explicit.

You can wire your 3PDT switch as a SPDT switch as GGBB has shown. His wiring is pretty clever.

Also make sure your switch is oriented properly.

[guysmiley]

LED doesn't light, and power doesn't go through in bypass or activated.  The way I'm looking at my switch is with the lugs horizontal like the picture I posted.  I thought that is how the 3PDT switch worked. 

[guysmiley]

Maybe I should switch the voltage in to the 2 lug of the pot and the voltage out to the 1st lug?

[mth5044]

Can you post a picture of your wiring?

[mth5044]

Do you have power coming into the input jack?

[guysmiley]

Do you have power coming into the input jack?

Yeah I tested that.

[guysmiley]

Here are some photos

[mth5044]

Hard to tell from the pictures, but are you soldering to the correct tabs on the power jacks? I've messed that one up a few times by soldering to the switching lug.

Also, where is that orange wire off to? Connect that wire to the ground of the power jacks. Connecting it to an aluminum enclosure, when the jacks are insulated and especially when they aren't in the enclosure, isn't going to do anything.

[guysmiley]

I think I connected the DC correctly.  

[guysmiley]

Hard to tell from the pictures, but are you soldering to the correct tabs on the power jacks? I've messed that one up a few times by soldering to the switching lug.

Also, where is that orange wire off to? Connect that wire to the ground of the power jacks. Connecting it to an aluminum enclosure, when the jacks are insulated and especially when they aren't in the enclosure, isn't going to do anything.

I had a wire clipped to the ground on the DC but removed it in the picture. 

[guysmiley]

I think I connected the DC correctly.  

I only connected the +/- to the 1 and 2 lungs

[mth5044]

+ should go to 3!

[guysmiley]

+ should go to 3!

 Got it!  That was the problem!  Thank you for the help.

[mth5044]

Not a problem, glad it worked out.